


Take the Shoes with You

by Anna__S



Category: Selfie (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3527174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna__S/pseuds/Anna__S
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s amazing how many times you have to learn something before it sticks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take the Shoes with You

**Author's Note:**

> Diaphenia asked for Eliza/Henry, masked ball. This is in the ballpark, I hope.

 

 

He starts by shifting his hair products under the sink. Even his favorite beaver hair shaving brush disappears into a drawer.  And suddenly, there’s room for her hairspray and her make-up and the bedazzled toothbrush he bought for her.  

And the next time she’s over at Freddy’s apartment, he’s cleared out two shelves for her. Which, admittedly, is barely enough room to hold her patterned bras, but it’s a sweet gesture. She doesn’t know why it makes her feel like her body is too small for all the thoughts threatening to jumble out of her mouth like bad tequila.  

He must have caught the flash of nausea because he quickly adds, “no pressure.”

Freddy wraps his arms around her waist, his palms resting on her butt. “I just wanted you to know that I’m serious about this. About us. And if you want to move in next month when my lease comes up, I think that would be cool.”

Eliza lets out a sheepish chuckle and lets her body lean into his, pressing her face into his t-shirt.  He’s wearing one of those colognes that’s supposed to make men smell like they spent all day chopping wood in a forest fire, and he smells a little bit like her perfume, and for a second she can picture it, a home that’s made of both of them. 

She pushes his hair away from his face and gives him a long, soft kiss.  He’s so hot and unexpectedly sweet, and all of her reservations seem like a sign that there’s something seriously and deeply wrong with her. That she never really scraped all the strange and awkward out from inside of her. 

“Let me think about it,” she says. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

And she does think about it.  And think about it. She even starts a countdown on her calendar to the end of the month that, depending on the minute, feels like anticipation or a ticking time bomb.

On Monday, she corners Henry in his office and blurts out, “Freddy asked me to move in with him.” 

He finishes his mouthful of salad and takes a sip of water before answering.  “Hmm,” he says.

“Hmm,” she repeats skeptically. “C'mon. Henry. These are the kind of things you live for. Giving me advice is your actual favorite thing. After color-coding your email,” she adds. He spears a cucumber with his fork so she plunges forward. “You can’t think of any good reasons why I shouldn’t? You don’t want to point out that he has more bath products than me and there’s no way all of our shampoos will fit in the shower? Or remind me that last week, he instagrammed himself mid-squat?”

“Mid-squat, Henry,” she repeats, hoping the importance of this fact will sink in. 

“This seems like something you need to decide for yourself,” he answers, patting at his mouth with a napkin.

And that’s the most she ever manages to get out of him. So, she discusses it at great length with Bryn, while she folds her aprons in the laundry room, and she makes her favorite bartender down the street give her shots while she asks him, and Charmonique tells her to lock it down.

She even considers tracking down Wanda McDougal because when she’s being completely honest with herself, Eliza knows that she owes almost everything in her life to Wanda McDougal. 

For years, she and Wanda had fought, neck and neck, to avoid the title of Most Butt.  Eliza had the clown hair and the awkward giraffe height, but Wanda had the acne and deadly body odor. It was honestly almost too close to call. Until senior year, when Wanda came back from summer break with a Clearasil prescription, extra-strong deodorant, and Victoria Secret boobs. 

And Eliza decided right then, that if Wanda “Pizza Face” McDougal could turn herself into a hottie, anybody could do it. Even her.

She started by absorbing every makeover movie she could get her hands on.  And movie lesson number one was: go on a diet.  That year, she survived on grape nuts and cottage cheese. Sometimes, even now, certain crunching sounds will transport her back to her kitchen, feet swinging from the stool, homework spread out on the linoleum in front of her.

Over time, the cash that her mom left behind for pizza dinners and takeout turned into new clothing and mascara. For the first time in her life, she wore clothes that weren’t her sister’s hand-me-downs, five years out of style and pulling in all the wrong places. 

Nobody asked her to the prom, but nobody dumped pig’s blood on her either.  And at the end of the year, her mother finally asked her if she had some sort of tapeworm.

So she wasn’t exactly the overnight success story that Wanda was, but it was a start. She learned about hair curlers and make-up brushes and push-up bras.  She realized that even on those days, when all she could see was the ugly duckling she’d always been, if she convinced other people that her disguise was real, she could believe it too. 

Eliza has a feeling that if Wanda could see her now, she might tell her to lock it down too. Back then, Freddy would’ve fit right in on the posters on her wall. 

 

 

* * *

 

  

Two weeks before the countdown ends and about two minutes after Freddy asks her how much furniture she wants to bring, Sam announces during the run-down meeting that in honor of Carnevale, the office will be hosting its first annual masked ball.

“Ooh, a carnival,” she mock-whispers to Henry, nudging his foot while he shushes her. 

“I’ll win you a stuffed animal, baby,” says Freddy, winking at her. 

“Do you think it’s been long enough to re-use my slutty poison ivy costume from Halloween 2009?  Or maybe, I should play it safe and be a skanky raggedy Ann.”

“It’s not that kind of carnival,” mutters Henry. “This is not an excuse to wear a miniskirt." 

“Um, since when do I need an excuse to wear a miniskirt?”

“Eliza,” says Freddy. “Eliza,” he repeats and this time he actually snaps his fingers and her temper flares.  “Can I talk to you?” he asks.

“You’re kinda doing it right now,” she says, but he ignores her and escorts her wordlessly back to her desk, his hand at her elbow.

“Am I about to get scolded?” she asks, putting on her best fake-naughty voice. 

“Eliza, I’m sick of being in a relationship with three people.”

“ _Excuse me_ ,” she says, her voice jumping up three octaves.

“No, I mean - not, not like that. Christ, Eliza. I’m talking about Henry.”

She makes a face like he just force-fed her a lime. “Freddy, c’mon.”

“I’m serious. How fast did it take you to turn around and ask him if we should live together? Five minutes? Ten minutes?”

Her eyes skitter away from his face, betraying her, damn her own eyes.

She starts to say, he’s my friend, changes her mind halfway through and instead of mentor, sputters out that he’s her friendtor. Which actually, is totally a great idea for a phrase and she’s about to add to her list of potential tag ideas when she remembers that Freddy is still glaring at her. 

“Fredddy,” she says, her voice skipping higher on each syllable. “Freddy. Freddy.  It’s Henry.“

“Exactly. He’s obsessed with you.”

“He’s not obsessed with me,” she says, waving her fingers at him. She tries to tamp down on the smile pulling at her lips and puts on her most serious face.  “Not anymore than everybody else. You have nothing to worry about. Seriously." 

Freddy is still shaking his head.  “If this is going to work, I need you to be in this too.”

“You got it,” she says.  “I promise. For realz.”

 

 

* * *

 

   

It’s been a long, weird day in a series of long, weird days, and she’s supposed to go home and figure out where people buy those moving boxes and _pack_ , and the only way she knows how to deal with it is to take the long way home and turn the volume up. When she was a baby and she wouldn’t stop crying, her mother would strap her into her car seat and drive in circles around the neighborhood until she fell asleep. Even now, Eliza still finds cars oddly soothing. Maybe a little too soothing. 

Through her half-lidded eyes and her hair bouncing wildly side to side, in time with Beyonce’s chorus, she barely notices the siren screaming behind her. 

“Crap,” she whispers, punching the volume off. She glances at herself in the mirror; quickly weighing the downsides of a ticket versus ruining the kickass make-up job she did this morning. But sometimes beauty has to be sacrificed on the altar of convenience. And she really cannot afford any more points on her license.

By the time the police officer is at her window, the first fat tear is already dripping down her face.

“Ma’am, driver’s license and registration, please,” the officer says. 

She lets out a loud sob and tries to think of the saddest things she can think of: dried up mascara tubes and that damn Sarah McLachlan ad. But for some reason, the only thing she can seem to think about is Henry.  And how much braver she feels knowing that if this takes a turn and she ends up accidentally running over the police officer’s toes again, she can call him and he will show up.

He’s her talisman against bad luck. Like a rabbit foot, but he actually always comes through.  And if she started eating nothing but grape nuts, he would notice.

It’s been a long time since her makeover movie marathon, but she still remembers the basics. You always fall for the guy who loved you before you got a banging body.  For her, that meant there was nobody to fall for, but she thinks maybe, if he had known her then, and it hadn’t made him a total pedophile, Henry would’ve liked her from the start. 

“License and registration,” the cop repeats, all traces of politeness gone.

“I’m sorry, I’m kind of having an epiphany over here,” she says. “Well, really more of a re-epiphany, but that doesn’t make it any less important.” 

Henry always tells her: you have to learn something more than once before it sticks.  So she lets herself feel everything she’s been pushing down for the last three months. Lets it wash over her. 

And she knows, she isn’t going to sign that lease.

 

  

* * *

 

 

Not signing the lease is easy. Breaking things off with Freddy is harder, but she wears her old glasses with the weak prescription, so she isn’t forced to remember what she’s throwing away. 

The hard part is figuring out what to do next.

She knows needs to seduce Henry slowly, quietly, so quietly that he doesn’t even notice it’s happening until she’s got him by his sensibly priced tie.  

She spends a week searching Henry’s face for signs, waiting for him to sense all the _fuck-me_ _or at least get close enough to me that I can accidentally touch your arm_ vibrations she’s sending into the office.  But the only person who notices is Charmonique and that balding IT guy who definitely reads all of her emails. 

She’s watching his stupid, beautiful, tiny lips close around a cherry tomato when Charmonique sits down next to her, horror dawning on her face.

“Oh no. No. Not this again,” says Charmonique.

“What?” asks Eliza, drawing the word out.

“You and Henry,” says Charmonique. “We already know how this ends. And last time, I had to buy you two pizzas to cheer you up. They don’t pay me enough  to do this again.” 

“This is totally different. Because this time, I have a plan. Well,” she amends. “I _will_ have a plan. Last time I just threw myself at him. And that’s not how Henry operates. He needs to be wooed.  It’s like a bear. You don’t just fling yourself at a bear. You win him over slowly, with honey.” 

“No,” says Charmonique. “Nobody does that. That’s not a thing.”

“Just you watch,” says Eliza and for two more weeks, Charmonique holds her tongue. 

Eliza tries wearing shorter skirts than usual, but all that gets her is stern lectures and a sweater for her to wrap around her hips, like she’s a wayward catholic school girl and he’s a nun, and she can’t imagine anything less sexy.

It’s not even comforting that he totally sneaks a peek at her ass when she walks away. Not comforting enough, anyway.

When she wears mom jeans and a button up as an experiment, he doesn’t lecture her, but he does ask her if she hit her head on anything, so she’s not sure that’s a step in the right direction either.

She remembers Wanda McDougal and wishes there was a movie genre focused on seducing your slightly uptight co-worker slash friend slash life coach. But this time, she's going to have to figure things out on her own. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

She’s almost resigned herself to a lifetime of celibacy, when he appears at her desk, peering over her phone.

“Today’s the big day right?” he asks. 

“Good eye, Henry. I _am_ wearing new boots, thank you for noticing,” she says.

“What? No. I’m talking about you moving.”

She stares blankly at him. 

“In with Freddy?” he says, more slowly now, as if they’ve stopped speaking the same language.

“Wait, are you serious? We broke up weeks ago. I thought you would’ve heard it on the grapevine.”  As soon as the words slip out of her mouth, she realizes how absurd they are. She’s his grape and his vine, and really, someday when he’s not realizing something really important, she needs to ask him what grapes have to do with gossip. 

“You did?” he says and for a second, a smile crinkles his lips and those forehead lines that she sometimes imagines kissing smooth, straighten out. Then his face reverts to his usual state of constipation, but it’s too late. She’s already seen it. 

“Are you going to the masquerade ball tonight?” she asks. 

“I thought I might stop by. Sam hand-delivered me my invitation,” he admits, which they both know is Sam’s nicest way of saying be there, or start updating your resume. 

“I’ll see you there?” he asks. He’s standing a little too close to her, so she can feel the heat of his skin. His arm is suddenly against her back, and she doesn’t know how it got there. His bicep is surprisingly muscular for somebody who works too much to go to the gym. And she knows he isn’t secretly making time for it, because she broke into his Google calendar months ago.

“Yeah, tonight,” Eliza says, feeling dazed. 

“Fo sho,” she adds, because sometimes she thinks he wouldn’t like her as much if she didn’t annoy him as much, and even if that’s not the case, this doesn’t seem like the time to risk it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She’s fashionably late and then a little more, and that’s all before she hits an epic traffic jam, but it’s harder than she expected to pick make-up when you know your face will be covered.  

She’s not sure what she was expecting: something transformative, something magical. But it’s just her co-workers chatting awkwardly in a Sheraton ballroom, looking slightly less dowdy than usual.

“Eliza!” Sam greets her with his usual enthusiasm and hands her a simple black mask. “Simply stunning as always.”

She holds the mask up, turning it to the side. “You know, we can all still recognize each other in these, right?”

“Recognizing each other isn’t the point,” he says. “Sometimes people need a mask to feel brave,” he adds and winks. Something heavy and strange settles in her stomach.

She winds her way past waiters carrying trays of tiny food screaming to be instagrammed and her co-workers, trying to recognize them from their bad posture or the thickness of their calves. She can immediately identify Raj from his single, repetitive dance move. And then, past a couple slow dancing, she sees Henry, and she would recognize him just from the way he’s standing, like maybe if he’s still enough, he might actually disappear. 

“Eliza,” he says and his voice is so soft, almost breathy, as if by saying her name and looking at her like that he can get out of everything else he needs to say.  And she thinks he might be right. 

“I’ve been looking for you,” he says, his voice sputtering and catching on _you_. Even in the dim lights of the ballroom, his forehead is gleaming with sweat. Eliza almost wishes she were an olden-era gentlemen so she could offer him her pocket handkerchief. 

She settles for snagging a napkin and offering it to him.  He takes it, but his fingers stay on her wrist, settling there like they’re answering a question. Eliza leans in toward him, letting her hip press against his. His eyes haven’t left her face since she found him, even though she’s wearing her best push-up bra, and something about that makes her want to throw herself at him even more. 

She really wants to run her fingers over his lips. And fuck it all, forget the bear strategy because Charmonique was right, Henry’s really more of a cat, she reaches her fingers up to his face, tracing the line of his lips.

She closes her eyes, waiting for him to lean in and kiss the crap out of her. His body language is screaming that he’s going to. But when she opens her eyes, he’s still staring down at her, his cheeks flushed, the whites of his eyes shining through the cut-outs in his mask.  

And she remembers that sometimes, even masks aren’t enough.  That you need other people to make them real. 

The way she sees it, she has two options: she can be mad that he’s a coward or she can be brave enough for both of them.  

“Fine. I guess I’m going to have to do everything myself,” she says and then she lunges at him, the slippery soles of her new heels nearly sending her crashing into him.

She starts slow, but he’s the one who deepens the kiss, his palms tightening around her waist. He tastes sharp and sweet at the same time, like champagne. He kisses her like he does everything else: slow and controlled, as if he’s precise enough, she might give him a gold star.

But she can still feel how aware of himself he is. She wants him to lose himself; she wants him to forget his own damn name, to ignore that their co-workers are probably staring at them while they eat those delicious sliders.

Eliza shifts her hips so his fingertips are on her lower back and moves down, nipping at his ear along the way, sucking down on his neck so hard she can feel his heartbeat in her throat. Henry makes a low noise that’s a cross between a moan and a growl, and with clarity so precise it hurts, she knows she’s going to spend a lot of time and energy trying to get him to repeat that noise.

His hands finally, finally travel down to her ass and his mouth is on hers, and he’s spent the last year teaching her how be considerate, how to be smart, and now it’s finally her turn to teach him everything she knows about losing control.  

 

 


End file.
